scattered objects, each with a possible but not an essential
function, littering a cloth already complicated by elaborate inserts of
lace. But the brilliantly lighted, over-decorated table was effective
enough in the big, darkly wainscoted room, a little island of light and
colour.

The room was characterless, but finely and generously proportioned, and
not so blatantly new as the rest of the colonel's house still looked.
Against the dark walls the pale-coloured gowns around the table were
charming. Indeed, most of the gowns were designed for this setting.

For there were no outsiders among the Colonel's guests to-night.
Sometimes there were distinguished outsiders, politicians and other big
men, diverted from triumphant tours through larger centres by the
Colonel's influence, and by his courtesy exhibited to Green River after
they had dined, or bigger men still, whose comings and goings the public
press was not permitted to chronicle. Sometimes, too, there were
outsiders on probation, the outer fringe of Green River society,
admitted to formal functions, and hoping in vain to penetrate to
intimate ones; ladies flustered and flattered, gentlemen sulky but
flattered, conscious that each appearance here might be their last, and
trying to seem indifferent to the fact.

But this was the Colonel's inner circle, gathered by telephone at
twenty-four hours' notice, as they so often were. No course that the
chef had contributed to the rather too elaborate menu was new to them.
The Pol Roger which the big English butler was just starting on his
second round was of the vintage year usually to be found on the
Colonel's wine list, and on most intelligently supervised wine lists. A
dinner for twelve, like plenty of little dinners elsewhere, no more
correct and no less, but it had this to distinguish it; it was being
served in Green River.

Served complete from hors-d'oeuvres to liqueurs, in a New England town
where high tea had been the fashion not ten years ago, and church
suppers were still important occasions--where you were rich on five
thousand a year, and there were not a dozen capitalists secure of so
much, where a second maid was an object of pride, and there was no
butler except the Colonel's. And he had imported this butler and his
chef and his wines, but not his guests; they were quite as impressive,
quite able to appreciate his hospitality, if not to return it in kind,
and they were all but one native products of Gree